Rajasthan, ITC ink water MoU

JAIPUR: Rajasthan government has joined hands with ITC to address water crisis in the desert state. The government has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with ITC Rural Development Trust under the integrated wasteland management scheme for developing a watershed project at Kalyanpura village in Bhilwara district.

The project spread across 5,000 hectare of land would benefit around 1,200 farmers of that region. Abhay Kumar, Director Watershed Project told ET that this would be the first public private partnership project in Watershed development. “The project would cost around Rs 6.5 crore in which ITC and Integrated Wasteland Development Project would have equal share of Rs 3 crore while 10% of the total cost would be contributed by the beneficiaries,” Mr. Kumar said.

“This project would go a long way in promotion of rainfed agricultural development. Watershed projects have been great success in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Rajasthan, which is completely based on rainfed agriculture needs such projects badly. It has merely one percent of the total surface water resources in the country. The rivers in the state are all rain-fed. There is a large area in the western part that does not have any defined drainage basin. This means the water resources in the state are not only scarce but are distributed unevenly,” a representative of ITC Rural Development trust said.

Kalu Lal Gurjar, state rural development and panchayati raj minister told ET that the main objective was to set up a model watershed project by utilising the knowledge and expertise of private sector.

“The cost of the project would be borne by ITC while panchayat would be the implementing agency. A special Project Management Committee would be set up comprising three members from the trust and two from the panchayat. A professional, who will be appointed by the trust, will chair it,” Mr Gurjar informed.

The committee will prepare a detailed project report through rural appraisal before implementation. “For the first time, a watershed project would focus on other agricultural aspects like efficient water use, agri marketing, crop diversification, micro credit etc for the farmers of the project area,” Mr Gurjar informed.